“These suspects began to demand money from Miss Dow. She pleaded with them that she didn’t have any money. They began to brutally beat her,” Sheriff Chuck Smith told WSB-TV.

Dow’s arms and fingers were broken, and her face was battered. The sheriff said the robbers then set her on fire with a flammable liquid.

“She remembered she had a gallon of water she filled her breathing machine with. With those broken hands, she took that top off the gallon of water and poured it on her head to put out the flames,” the victim’s daughter-in-law Beth Dow told WSB-TV.

Dow crawled to her cell phone and called 9-1-1, reported the station.

She was hospitalized in critical condition for several weeks and was able to identify her attackers before succumbing to her injuries.

“I can’t imagine being one of their mamas, and know that your child has done this,” the younger Dow said.

Dow and her son grew blueberry bushes on their property and often paid locals to pick the fruit. Dow’s alleged attackers, including four teens, worked for her in her blueberry fields and knew she kept cash in the house.

“I would love to talk to them and ask ‘Why? Why did you do this?’ I do want them to be punished,” said Beth Dow.